As the snow has started falling on Vermont’s highest peaks, the Juniors have started to transition to some more specific workouts. Intervals get shorter and harder (as well as faster), and the focus on specific movements increases as we look to work on technique before the transition to snow. We even got a first-hand look at that transition today as we hiked a muddy Camel’s Hump that eventually turned into a very snowy summit. Here are a few pictures and videos from the past few days!
Running some of my favorite trails on Friday. If you haven’t checked out the loops at the Preston Forest Preserve (more colloquially known as “the trails behind Cochran’s”) you are missing out! The prayer flags at the top gave us a chance to reach out to the Snow Gods for some real winter these coming months.
Preston Forest Preserve trails (click for map)…one of the best-kept secrets around and some of the coolest trails you can run or bike on. Just make sure you like lots of climbing!
Our prayers were answered, at least partially, with some snow on Camel’s Hump on Sunday. We’ve also been fortunate to receive some new flavors from Bobo’s Oat Bars, including the delicious and now-coveted gingerbread!
In between Friday and Sunday’s trail adventures, we headed over to the Smuggs area for striding intervals on the beautiful Road 101, our top-secret rollerski road with fresh pavement and steep switchbacks. Since both a small network of trails and an uphill dirt road lead directly from the paved road, we combined some training modes to keep working on our striding technique.
First, we got in some technical trail running as a warmup, followed by some dynamic and mobility-oriented drills. Then we did some bounding interval up the dirt road. The team then made a quick swap to rollerskiing (we left gear right at the intersection of the dirt and paved road) for striding intervals of the exact same length up the switchbacks. Great way to see and feel the difference between being on foot and on skis.
Ski gear waiting for the conclusion of bounding intervals. Notice all the great Toko belts for our water and snacks!
Video edit from the intervals. As you can probably tell I tried to splice together everyone’s bounding with their striding. Some interesting things to see when this happens! I will also post up footage of all of the bounding clips, since we had some folks just on foot (not skiing).
Finally, a quick note on yesterday’s XC running State Meet. Great to see strong performances from MNC athletes all over the place! Baxter Bishop 8th, Sammie Nolan 21st, Conor Munns 30th in the D1 men’s and women’s races. Alex Warner 29th and Eli Grossman 33rd in the Challenge Race (out of 310 runners!). It doesn’t take much scrolling to find lots of other familiar names from winter races…here’s a picture borrowed from the SMS blog of Baxter running alongside fellow Eastern Cup competitor Ben Ogden!
Ben Ogden (in yellow) and Baxter Bishop (in red): two endurance machines who go faster the tougher the course is (in both skiing and running)!
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